


Christmas Present

by celluloidbroomcloset



Category: The Avengers (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-11
Updated: 2015-04-11
Packaged: 2018-03-22 09:04:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3723157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloidbroomcloset/pseuds/celluloidbroomcloset
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steed and Emma spend Christmas of 1977 together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Christmas Present

The fire crackled and sparked. Emma leaned back against the edge of the sofa, her knees drawn up beneath her chin, and watched the flickering flames. The room was filled with the sweet scent of pine and the lingering aroma of well-cooked halibut in white wine sauce. Outside, snow had begun to fall again; only lightly, but she could see frost forming on the windows of the cabin.

“Nothing cozier,” said Steed. He sat down beside her and proffered a mug of cocoa spiked with Grand Marnier. 

“Nothing at all.”

She looked at him in the firelight. He was still handsome. Ten years had done nothing to change that. The hair was grayer, the eyes a bit more crinkled, but they still flashed with the same warmth when he looked at her. The only change, in fact, seemed to be the sadness that was always present in his face and had softened and mellowed into a quiet, sorrowful wisdom. He had the same face, yes, but it was also the face of a man who had lost a great deal. The wars that had been fought before those eyes, and within that breast, had not embittered him, though. They only made him more thoughtful. 

He stretched his legs out to the fire and reclined with the same languid ease he had as a younger man, holding his own cocoa in one hand.

“It’s nice to come back here,” he said. 

Emma nodded “It seems silly to have a place like this and never use it. I’m glad I finally had the chance to use it again.”

She looked around the cabin. She never brought Peter here. Whenever he suggested it, she found a reason not to come. Too remote, too far from London, too cold this time of year, too warm this time of year. She did not tell him the truth that she concealed even from herself – this had been the place that her and Steed spent their last Christmas together, and she did not want to mix those memories with that of her husband. Ex-husband.

Steed seemed to know, or sense, what wasn’t being said. He rolled the mug between his palms.

“A lot of good memories here,” he said, quietly.

Emma rested her head on his shoulder. Still comfortable, made more so by the soft corded pullover he wore. He wrapped one arm about her shoulders and squeezed her. 

“We had a snowball fight,” he said. “You played very unfairly, dropping snow down my collar.”

“You got your own back, if I remember correctly. We had that lovely roasted chicken.”

“A culinary triumph, if I do say so myself. Drank three bottles of wine. Chateau LaFite. Excellent vintage.” His voice dropped. “I gave you a bracelet.” 

“And I gave you that pin for your cravats.” She paused. “I still have it.”

“So do I.” His hand rolled over the ball of her shoulder. “That bracelet was all you wore that night.”

Emma closed her eyes. The fire’s flicker, the soft rug, the heat of their bodies, their actions speaking louder than their words ever did. Those words that had never been spoken and that might have…

She shook the thought out of her head. It had taken too long, but they were together again. She supposed that in a way they had never been apart.

Steed sighed. “I’m beginning to feel quite old, you know." 

“You? You’re perpetually young, Steed.”

Steed cleared his throat. “Age and maturity are not always the same thing, Mrs. Peel. I’ve begun to wonder if I’m not playing a fool’s game. One can only cheat Death so many times before he begins to suspect loaded dice. I want…time to enjoy things. My horses, my clubs…”

“Your women?” She meant it as a joke, but it came out rather more serious. Steed laced his fingers with hers. 

“There’s only one I have any interest in.”

“Oh? Do I know her?” 

“Intimately.”

She looked down at his big, calloused and, yes, somewhat wrinkled hand. 

“Steed, you’re not thinking of retiring, are you?”

“Not quite yet, but it is a consideration.” 

“Mm.” She patted his chest. “Well, consider this: the last thing I want is to have you wandering about the house like a schoolboy on holiday, getting into all kinds of mischief.”

“You mean I’m forbidden to quit working?”

“For at least another twenty years.” 

“One gets the sense that you don’t want me around, my dear.” 

“On the contrary, I merely want you to be pleasant to live with. It’s entirely selfish.”

He kissed her hand. “You ask, and I obey. Now, Christmas presents!"

“Ah!”

Emma disentangled herself from his arm. She went into the bedroom and rummaged about in her luggage until she found the little green box and bottle of wine she’d stowed away for the occasion. For a moment she looked around the dark bedroom, taking in the frosted windows, the expansive bed and warm down duvet. With a smile she could not have accounted for, she returned to the living room. 

“Two presents?” Steed said, taking the wrapped bottle from her hand as she sat down. “You do spoil me.”

“Well, the wine is your real present.”

Emma watched his face as he unwrapped the bottle. He smiled.

“Chateau Lafite, 1966. You have a sentimental streak, my dear.”

She set the green box in his hand. “And this…this is a bit silly, I admit, but it has sentimental value, of a sort.”

If she’d expected a reaction from the wine, she had not quite expected his response when he opened her second gift. His grey eyes became unreadable as he drew out the small, but perfect, replica Bentley. He was silent for a moment, balancing the little metal vehicle in his hand.

“The old girl,” he said, finally. “Same plates. Same dents.”

“When you told me what happened to her…” Emma paused.

She wanted to be able to explain what she felt. She hated that old car, so difficult to drive, so cold in the wintertime, more trouble than it was worth. Yet she loved it too, and the fact that it was no more felt like something had been stolen from her.

“I wish I could bring her…Steed, are you crying?” 

In the dim light, she could swear that his eyes had grown glassy. 

“Don’t be absurd, Emma, I never cry. Must be the smoke.” He pressed the heel of his hand to his eye. “She meant a great deal to me. Thank you.”

Now Emma felt that the smoke was getting to her eyes. She turned away quickly to pick up her cocoa. 

“Where’s my present?”

Steed reached into his pocket for a flat black box. When she opened it, a sapphire set within a nest of diamonds sparkled back at her. She drew it out, a pendant on a silver chain, and held it up to the light. He always knew. 

“Turn it over,” said Steed.

She turned the pendant around and read the inscription: Christmas 1977. 

“Steed…” Her eyes met his as his hands curled around her fingers. The smoke was really terribly annoying.

“I want this to be the start, Emma,” he said. “The past is the past. All that’s left is that I love you, and I want our lives to be one and the same, from this moment forwards, until we’re both old and doddering and can’t remember how to put our trousers on.”

Emma laughed, though tears had begun to roll unbidden down her cheeks. His hands came up and cupped her face.

“I love you, Mrs. Peel,” he said.

“I heard you the first time.”

She leaned forward and captured his lips with hers, to taste the sweet flavor of chocolate and liqueur and him. 

They didn’t speak after that; just sat and watched the fire burn to embers and ash while the snow fell outside. Then they took themselves to bed, crawling beneath the thick duvet together, complementary as always.

They undressed each other beneath the covers, until she wore nothing but the pendant about her neck and his body covered hers.

Emma felt the knowledge in his hands and his kisses, the way he made up a fundamental part of herself. She no longer thought of the years that had separated them, the anger and the regret that formed such a large part of her life without him. She remembered him, the broad back she clung to, the broad shoulders she adored, his understanding heart, the love they shared, the mutual respect, the mutual adoration. They had never truly left each other. Older, wiser, perhaps, but still as much a part of each other as they had been from the day her car crashed into the back of a vintage Bentley and she was confronted, angry and self-righteous, with a dark figure in a bowler hat.

But that was the past. She no longer wanted to dwell on what might have been. When they lay together, finally, arms and legs intertwined, she turned her head into the curve of his neck and breathed the sweet, real scent of him. 

“Merry Christmas, John.”

He pressed his lips to her forehead. “Merry Christmas, Emma.”


End file.
